SHELBY -- It’s not yet clear how many or when, but jobs will soon return to a Cleveland County manufacturing plant that closed four years ago as the economy soured and the demand for its products declined.

Officials with Bernhardt Inc. – a furniture company headquartered in Lenoir – confirmed to The Star on Friday that Plant 9 on East Grover Street in Shelby will reopen as early as mid-July.

Company officials referred comments on details about the reopening Friday to Bernhardt vice president of human resources William Howard, who did not return a call by deadline for this story.

A steady stream of people visited the plant Friday, where another sign on the front door told them to return at 8 a.m. Monday to fill out applications.

Gregg and Teresa Greene were among those who visited the site Friday. The Greenes said they worked as upholstery cloth cutters at Bernardt Plant 9 from 2005 to 2009, when the furniture site closed its doors.

“Furniture is a very postponable, discretionary item,” Howard told The Star in April 2009 in a story about plans for the site to close.

Now, the company plans to reopen in a building that at least twice housed manufacturing operations in the past – Hudson Hosiery and then Bernhardt.

“We’re ecstatic,” Gregg Greene said about the opportunity to return to Bernhardt.

“It feels like we’re coming home,” his wife Teresa said.

The Greenes said they live in Rutherford County and currently drive to Burke County for cloth-cutting jobs.

Workers from the Lenoir Bernhardt plant were inside Friday, preparing the site for its return to manufacturing products. They said the plant plans to reopen in several weeks.

More details to come

This story is still developing and more information is expected in the coming days and weeks. For the latest, visit shelbystar.com, follow @shelbystar on Twitter and “like” The Shelby Star on Facebook.

What is Bernhardt Inc.?

* Founded in 1889 by John Mathias Bernhardt and is still privately owned by the founding family

* Headquartered in Lenoir

* Currently employs about 1,000 people at seven facilities in North Carolina and six offices in Asia. The company’s 75,000-square-foot showroom is located in High Point.

* Products include home and home office furniture, mid-priced seating, seating and textiles for corporate offices and commercial items for hospitality guestrooms and suites

Source: Bernhardt.com

When did the local plant open?

The East Grover Street plant in Shelby opened in the early 1970s in the former Hudson Hosiery building, according to previous Star reports.

What was made at the plant?

Upholstered sofas and chairs for homes, including designer lines such as Martha Stewart.

Why’d the plant close?

Poor economic and furniture market conditions led to the plant’s closure in June 2009. It was “a direct result of lack of consumer confidence,” William Howard, vice president of human resources for the Lenoir-based company, told The Star in April 2009.

When it closed, it was one of only two remaining upholstery plants in the company, in addition to one in Lenoir. Production work was consolidated to the Lenoir plant.

How many jobs did that affect?

The Shelby plant had a workforce of more than 100 jobs at the time of its closure.

Want to apply or more information?

Bernhardt Plant 9 is at 732 E. Grover St. in Shelby. Visit bernhardt.com, Bernhardt Furniture Company on Facebook or @bernhardtinc on Twitter for more information.

Unemployment rates

April 2013 – 9.5 percent – 4,768 unemployed*

June 2009 – 15.4 percent – 7,968 unemployed

* Latest numbers available

NOTE: Numbers compare latest unemployment rate with rate at time of the plant closure.

Source: N.C. Department of Commerce Division of Employment Security

What’s planned?

“Although we are still working through the approval process associated with some potential financial incentives for the project, we are extremely excited that Bernhardt is planning to resume operations in the Shelby facility. Our Economic Development team, the City of Shelby and Cleveland County will be working with the company's leadership to ensure the company's restart is streamlined and successful. Although improvements will need to be made to the facility itself, we are all just elated that we will be able to see Bernhardt operational again and that many of the jobs that were lost years ago due to the plant closure will be coming back.”

-- Kristin Fletcher, executive vice president of Cleveland County Economic Development Partnership

1:14 p.m. Friday, June 28

In 2009, Bernhardt Furniture closed its Grover Street location in Shelby after more than 40 years. City Editor Matthew Tessnear and photographer Ben Earp are at the location now after a sign went up stating jobs are coming back to the site.